Armelline's Free Stuff For Everyone (check first post for the latest update!)

WARNING: LOTS OF GRAPHICS BELOW

So as I continue working through my "Tests" folder, I found a few other things that I thought would be worth taking the time to post for free. I'll eventually put together a new website and will put them there when I do, but for now I'll use this thread to compile them.

Hopefully the file hosting I'm about to use will do the trick... if not I'll find a new one.

I'll add more as I make/find them!

❝ Alphabetise a Table ❞

There are some hidden goodies in the expression editor, one of which is the ability to compare two strings and calculate which is alphabetically earlier than the other using a simple > comparison. This demo shows it in action on a table with 10 words in it. It can definitely be massively speeded up by using custom loops instead of the built in GameSalad ones, but I went for the easy option here as the looping itself isn't the focus of this demo. The table cells are spawned automatically but there's no logic to handle larger numbers of them - it wouldn't be too difficult to add, if you had some need to. (If you only have a few items to compare, use the method in my bubble sort demo - it'll be the fastest way to do it.)https://www.copy.com/s/t:LxxDu7g3hs3RO09N;p:%2FAlphabetise.zip

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❝ Blur ❞

This is a very small template that aimed to mimic the iOS 7 blur effect found in things like Control Centre. I seem to remember making it a lot more complicated and flexible than this one, but if I did I lost the file. It's a very, very cheesy way of achieving the effect - don't expect anything clever. Note that the image quality below does not reflect the actual effect as it's just a crappy gif.

❝ Bubble Sort ❞

When I was working on the problem of comparing poker hands it was necessary to sort the hands before performing the comparison. I tried various methods of bubble sorting with loops, but found that for smaller numbers of items (I didn't test past 10), this was the fastest way. Since I made this I've found a way I think will speed it up even more but haven't had time to revisit it.

❝ De-Spacer ❞

Somebody was discussing (I forget who) how to remove spaces from a string of text. Since it was such a quick and easy thing to do I whipped up this example. Don't expect fireworks, it only does one simple and boring thing.

❝ Falling Leaf ❞

A game I'm working on right now required a powerup to drift slowly down the screen, like a falling leaf. So this is... a falling leaf. You can tweak the settings to your heart's desire to get just the right float effect you need.

❝ Flood Fill ❞

This is only really a flood fill in the broadest sense, but it was interesting to make. I'm not sure how you'd really find a use for it but I could see no reason not to include it, just in case. I used a similar method to this in one of my games that I've never finished, but you'll be able to see if you search my post history. I'm too lazy to find it myself.

❝ Follow Touch Path ❞

This is a super-simple way of recording the path of a touch and then having an actor retrace that path. All it does it fill a table with touch positions then play back through them. It's very quick and rough logic and will require a reasonable amount of effort to add it into your game - I just wanted to see how well GameSalad handled it. The short answer: If you touch slow, very well, if you touch fast, okay. Each dot drawn is a datapoint, so the more dots the smoother the motion. All images are free to use.https://www.copy.com/s/t:HpOLwGGdbomsxWUk;p:%2FFollow%20Touch%20Path.zip

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❝ High-Low Card Game ❞

In response to a request on the forums, I threw together this basic high-low card game. It should make a decent basis for a game and the placeholder graphics are free to use should you want to. (Though you don't, they're not impressive.) Cards are generated dynamically.

❝ Leaf Blower ❞

I toyed with this idea a while back but never really came up with a particularly great way to leverage it. You can blow leaves around (was originally footballs but I hate football and love trees) by touching on the screen. The leaves will turn slightly as they move, and will move slightly faster the closer they are to the source of the wind.

❝ Magnets ❞

@StormyStudio ran a few "1 hour game" contests a while ago. They were a lot of fun, and this was one of my entries. It's very rough and a lot of corners were cut, but hey there are only so many minutes in an hour This was a lot more fun to make than it is to play. It's seriously frustrating.

❝ Pulsator ❞

Just a little snippet this time. A quick and easy pulsating effect. Control the amount of size change that occurs and the speed of the pulsating. Great for adding some motion to menus and game elements! (The gif isn't a perfect loop, they don't jump like that in the project.)https://www.copy.com/s/t:G89ZyuRfKqEWW8SN;p:%2FPulsator.zip

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❝ Radio Buttons ❞

When I first started using GameSalad, I needed to make some radio buttons. I'm ashamed to say how long it took me to figure it out (it was literally my first day though), so here's a quick example of a super-simple way of implementing some.

❝ SaveSalad - Autosave for GameSalad ❞

Over the past week, GameSalad has crashed dozens of times for me, frequently losing me work. When I get really caught up in the flow of things I sometimes forget to save, and will often hit preview only to realise GameSalad is about to crash with 10 minutes of unsaved work about to go down the drain. After re-doing the same bit of logic for the 6th or 7th time yesterday I decided enough was enough and whipped up SaveSalad.

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SaveSalad is a little (Mac only) Applescript application that, if GameSalad is open and the frontmost window, will save your project at a set interval. If GameSalad is not the frontmost window, it will save shortly after you return to GameSalad (if the save interval has passed - otherwise at the next interval). Unfortunately you have to set the save interval every time you launch SaveSalad, but it only takes a second with some pre-set options, or the choice of entering your own save interval.

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I've been using it myself but I haven't tested thoroughly, so please let me know any bugs via PM. It does what I needed it to do, though, so I don't plan to add any more feature or fix anything other than major bugs. You use this entirely at your own risk.

❝ Simple Tank ❞

Someone wanted a tank with the gun separate to the body but constrained to it. So I threw this together as a quick example of how it might be done. It was actually a pretty pleasing effect considering how simple it is. The gun will always point towards the mouse, and the body can be controlled with the directional keys.

❝ Spawn Avoiding Player ❞

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This project demonstrates two different ways of spawning while avoiding the player. One is quick and easy but has potential drawbacks, the other is a bit more complex but ultimately more flexible. You'll need to read the descriptions given to the various rules and enable or disable them as necessary. One method calculates a safe spawning position based on the position of the player, the size of the player and the size of the enemy to be spawned. The other spawns the enemy completely at random and then destroys it and spawns another if it overlaps with the player. These some super-basic enemy movement in there too if you want to spice things up a bit.

❝ Spawn on Grid ❞

There are two things going on in this one, really. One is the "creating" of a grid using attributes that are constrained to values that will fit on the screen. Make the grid cell size bigger and you can fit fewer rows on, etc. Once you've decided on the size of your grid, you can click anywhere within your grid area and an actor will be spawned in the grid position you clicked.https://www.copy.com/s/t:u4VK13ZUZ1qTbl0b;p:%2FSpawn%20on%20Grid.zip

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❝ Spawn Time Changer ❞

This is a very simple way to spawn objects on a timer and be able to adjust the spawn rate dynamically while maintaining a smooth and constant spawn rate. If you are spawning every 1 second and increase the spawn rate to every 0.5s, it will spawn the next actor as soon as 0.5s has passed since the previous spawn. If you adjust it upwards to 2s, it'll spawn 2s after the previous spawn. It's simple, easy to use and implement. I like this method as no timers are used. All graphics were taken from the public domain and are free to use.https://www.copy.com/s/t:vACSq0wwxUpi0cRN;p:%2FSpawn%20Time%20Changer.gameproj.zip

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❝ TestFlighter 3 ❞

I've just been battling with Apple's new TestFlight system, so it seemed a good time to update TestFlighter to open Application Loader rather than the TestFlight app. This is an Automator action for Mac OS X that will take any iPhone .app file you drop onto it, prepare it for upload to Apple and launch Application Loader. This saves some time when preparing files for Apple's new TestFlight system! Just stick it on your Dock and drag and drop your game onto the icon.

❝ The Swipe Factory ❞

Essentially a laboratory to experiment with swipes and found out how far a user swipes, how fast they swipe, the direction of the swipe and the real-world distance of the swipe. Lots of information, lots of options, and lots of NUMBERS.

❝ Timer Changes ❞

It's a common question - how do I change a timer once it's started running? There are many different ways of doing so, but this example project shows you two of them. One uses an attribute that switches on and off forcing the timer to re-check the attribute controlling it's frequency, and the other uses a method from the "Timers are for Chumps" thread that avoid the use of GameSalad's built in timers and thus sidesteps the problem of changing them.

❝ Typewriter Effect ❞

This is the template got me thinking about making this thread, and was one that I made when GameSalad released the new string functions, which I love. Those and being able to put functions on the left of a rule condition have really amped up the power of GameSalad, perhaps more than people appreciate. This pulls the text to be displayed from a table, as well as the character that says it. Text is wrapped dynamically (though bluntly) to avoid words jumping lines as it's typed out. The player can tap the text to skip the typing (though this isn't done dynamically - might add that later). It's much smoother than in the gif.

❝ Voltage ❞

Another "1 hour game" competition entries. I actually really enjoyed this one. It was a fully playable (if incredibly simple) game at the end of the hour, and had passable graphics too. Maybe someone will find it interesting to poke through. Again, though, a lot of corners were cut to get it done by the 1 hour deadline. (All art except the metal effect background is free to be used too - it's just Illustrator defaults.)

Notice: All these demos are FREE for you to use in your projects. You MAY NOT re-host them, sell them, or use them in templates you sell. Unless otherwise stated, graphics and sounds are NOT mine and MAY NOT be used.

@Socks said:
On your iOS7 blur effect do you know you can line up the two images (the tiger and the blurred tiger) by simply using a fixed position tile . . . hold on, demo time . . . back in 30 seconds . .

I did not Great example, will edit it in Your does produce a slightly different effect though - in my opinion a cleaner and more elegant one, but slightly less similar to the strong blurring used in iOS 7.

On a side note, I see that the special characters to emphasise titles has been cracked down on today (unless you're one special person :P) Despite abusing them a lot today that's a change I'm actually quite willing to see (Either that or they've just stopped displaying for me today for some reason.)

@Socks said:
I've got photos of the GS staff that they'd rather the press didn't get, having special characters in thread titles is part of the blackmail deal.

I wasn't counting you, yours have reverted to either nothing or to character missing symbol for me. I assumed they disabled the use of a broad sweep of unicode characters in titles. The one person I was referring to seems to have inadvertently sidestepped the issue since they used regular characters like > and * instead. (I do notice that some older threads still have stars and things, so maybe wasn't an automated process.)

It's kinda new. No special characters in titles are part of the updated rules from GameSalad -

3 - USE DESCRIPTIVE TITLES. - Thread titles should be clear and specific and should avoid the use of “Help!!!,” “Pleeeeease!!!, ALL CAPS, and symbols that draw attention to a title. Repeated failure to adhere to this rule may result in a warning and/or ban. If your topic is something that's directed toward someone specific within the forum, write them a private message, or go to their email or website and contact them there. Threads directed at specific users will often be closed or removed.

I have no friends. I'm a loser that makes video games all day. Will you be my friend?

❝ The Swipe Factory ❞

Essentially a laboratory to experiment with swipes and found out how far a user swipes, how fast they swipe, the direction of the swipe and the real-world distance of the swipe. Lots of information, lots of options, and lots of NUMBERS.

Thanks a bunch, Armerlline I have a question though: what's the best way to copy an actor from your template in to my game? I really want to take your falling leaf and bring it in to my game.

I tried grouping the behaviors and bring it in, but a lot of the attributes are broken. Then I tried recreating those attributes and reassigning them based on how they work in your file, but the leaf behaves oddly (it seems to spawn off screen, and I'm not sure how it's moving around...). I think I did something wrong. But when I tried just copy and pasting the actor from one game to the next, nothing happens.

@wirelesstkd said:
Thanks a bunch, Armerlline I have a question though: what's the best way to copy an actor from your template in to my game? I really want to take your falling leaf and bring it in to my game.

I tried grouping the behaviors and bring it in, but a lot of the attributes are broken. Then I tried recreating those attributes and reassigning them based on how they work in your file, but the leaf behaves oddly (it seems to spawn off screen, and I'm not sure how it's moving around...). I think I did something wrong. But when I tried just copy and pasting the actor from one game to the next, nothing happens.

Unfortunately you can't copy and paste the actor as it uses a number of self attributes, and GameSalad is very bad at handling those when actors are copied. You'll need to re-create it yourself.

It sounds like the problem you're having is due to the numbers that dictate the starting position of the leaf:

Once the leaf is definitely spawning on screen, you'll be able to see just how it's behaving and that will help us narrow down what's going wrong.

Sorry it took me a while to respond... I haven't had much time to sit down in front of GS and work with it, but it seems like this will work for me Thanks so much for taking the time to rework the template for me!

@wirelesstkd said:
Sorry it took me a while to respond... I haven't had much time to sit down in front of GS and work with it, but it seems like this will work for me Thanks so much for taking the time to rework the template for me!

Having reached a compromise with the forum staff, I'm very pleased to say I'm going to return to posting little bits and bobs in this thread! Latest is a High-Low card game demo I put together for someone on these forums a few weeks back, but I've got plenty more stored up since my last post!

❝ High-Low Card Game ❞

In response to a request on the forums, I threw together this basic high-low card game. It should make a decent basis for a game and the placeholder graphics are free to use should you want to. (Though you don't, they're not impressive.) Cards are generated dynamically.https://www.copy.com/s/t:EmwhYnmcS14sf23F;p:%2FHigh-Low.zip

If a mod could copy this into the first post of this thread, and stick the image code below at the top of the first post of the thread, I'd be very much obliged!